Blogs as Teaching Tools

Actual case studies and personal narratives are oftentimes the optimal jumping off point in teaching ethical theory, methods, and stimulating discussion. In addition to the standard hardcopy tome, why not use the real-time lived experiences of bloggers? Here are a few blogs to check out, which might serve as discussion starters in your bioethics class:

A Little Pregnant [http://www.alittlepregnant.com/] Description: Madcap misadventures in infertility, pregnancy, and parenthood.

Hospice Blog [http://hospiceblog.blogspot.com/] Description: Fighting for quality hospice care for those that need it.

A Single Woman's Journey To Motherhood [http://kajohn345.blogspot.com/] Description: I am 30 and ready to start my family. I am beginning TTC in January. If that doesn't work (after 6 months to a year), I am heading to adoption. These are my random thoughts and obsessions about TTC, adoption, weight loss, teaching, and working on (actually procrastinating) my Master's. If you stop by, please leave me a short note! I like to know when I have visitors.

Code Blog: Tales of a Nurse [http://www.codeblog.com/]

Death Maiden [http://www.deathmaiden.blogspot.com/] Description: The following postings are all fictionalized. Names and circumstances have all been changed to protect the identity of persons in the stories. Any resemblance to real life people and circumstances is purely coincidence. This blog has been created to explore my personal feelings and professional experiences with death and dying. --Dominic Sisti

Bioethics Abandons the Creationism Debate

Texbook disclaimer stickers are here. Bioethicists remain oddly silent on the issue of teaching evolution in schools. Given the renewed efforts of creationists to both discredit evolution and to have creationism taught as science rather than as religion this paucity of comment is inexcusable. This website nicely captures the dangers that await high school kids when those in bioethics fail to comment on one of the core ethical challenges facing biomedicine--that its foundational theory ought not be taught in American schools as science! - Art Caplan UPDATE: polls confirm that most Americans adhere to at least some creationist views.

Moving Toward Bioethics in Secondary School

Ethics and Topical Issues Could Replace Traditional Sciences , writes RedNova. "Teenagers will be able to ditch traditional science studies and focus on the ethics of hot topics like cloning and MMR, under GCSE reforms outlined this week." Is this true? Feedback from partner teachers working with Penn's high school bioethics project would indicate that unless the teaching of bioethics somehow replaced the teaching of science, it would be a welcome option. Many teachers tell us they don't have the time and, some say, the training to teach bioethics in a systematic way. Nonetheless teachers fit bioethics in because they are interested, their students are interested & ask the right questions, and because by teaching basic science in a broader context they can point out the relevance of emerging technologies for students, their families, and society. -Dominic Sisti

Scientists Highlight Bad Science in (Often Bad) Movies

Science news reports that scientists are trying to teach the public about bad science by using the science found in popular movies. The American public is notoriously ill-informed about science and medicine. Why not use their love affair with the movies to try and educate them? That is exactly what some scientists are trying to do, using popular movies as a vehicle to illustrate what science can and cannot do, what is good science and what is bad. While most of the examples in the article are about physics and geology, bioethical issues are commonly portrayed on television and the in cinema, and movies can sometimes be the best vehicle for raising discussion -- as Jurrasic Park did for genetic engineering of endangered and extinct species.